about time

I keep looking at these notes, a lot of them old, and I think "I should have posted this on my blog a while ago.."
This thought has been in my head for weeks.
So I think I'll finally just copy and past some of my notes.

Internet is a big thing. It takes away the feeling of real when it comes to arguments and flaming.

Page 123 – “The insult, let fly, seems virtual in the sense of “real” when one dwells on the satisfaction of venting anger, virtual in the sense of “not actual” when it comes to reaping consequences.”

“In this carnival mixture of fantasy and reality, ids easily gain the upper hand over superegos.”

Page 131 – people worried about the phone like they did/do about the internet. It’s not safe, blah blah. “Acceptance of the telephone did not erase this fear of the virtual…” page 132

Racism stayed the same. Political correctness hasn’t affected it much. Page173 chapter 7 around there (section on private life, but private life reflects social life so whatever)

Page 177 – women “dive-bombing” showed their subservience and their sexual availability

Page 178 and pages around that are about women and what they deal with and how they are treated. Super depressing. Might just ignore it altogether.

that's all from Mark Caldwell's book, A Short History of Rudeness.

My investigation is one that will delve into the transformation of etiquette in the 20^th century. By etiquette or manners I mean social customs I mean behavior which is socially acceptable. Not the tiny little things like which fork to use for what food. Certain specific table manners aren’t so important to me. The overall behavior at a table, however, does matter. If there is a general discomfort, it’s important to know where it is coming from and why. Perhaps one of the dinner guests is a messy or loud eater. I’ll see how long that has been a taboo. I will look at specific mannerisms and rules of etiquette if they explain or point to how and why people feel (and act) the way they do. This means I might actually be looking at the little things that annoy me because they are so minute and made up and ridiculously unnecessary. If they make a difference.

I will look specifically at etiquette in the public realm. Daily activity. Not into personal spheres, like sexual relationships but about the day-to-day, informal interactions between people. It will go only slightly into personal relationships because no one is strictly a social person; personal lives often mix with social lives.

“Manners, good and bad, pervade so much of daily life that at times they seem to embrace everything—considerateness and selfishness, freedom and anarchy, birth and death, cooking and upholstery, crime and punishment, linens and sex. Manners are trivial, profound, and amorphous beyond compassing. Manners are what is left when serious issues of human relations are removed from consideration; yet without manners serious human relations are impossible. And everybody cares about them…” (Caldwell, 2).

“Civility and rudeness play themselves out just where the academic hesitates to go, among the unmeasurables of life, in anecdotes, in random events and imperfectly recorded human exchanges that may often seem unreadable, too eccentric and evanescent for systematic analysis” (Caldwell, 6-7).

There was a flurry of concerns, one of numerous periodic anxiety attacks over manners since the dawn of the republic, at the dawn of the twentieth century. It might be a “general syndrome of premillennial jitters.” The earliest for the 21^st century might have started in the 60s, at the American university, according to Allan Bloom in his book The Closing of the American Mind (1987). Bloom argued the university had become a rubber stamp of mindless approval for vulgar cant and rude prejudice beginning in the 60s. The result was a moral and cultural loss, “a fatal lowering of the nation’s civic tone” (Caldwell, 3).

Then from Benet Davetian's book, Civility A Cultural History I have some more stuff...

Davetian page 9 defines civility, shows its roots: “I have defined courtesy and civility as the extent to which citizens of a given culture speak and act in ways that demonstrate a caring for the welfare of others as well as of the culture they share in common.”

There is always a difference between what is preached and eventually what is practiced.

Page 271 – It would seem that the “cultural ethos of America” has not “survived the dislocations of modernity.” It is “an ethos that has been politically, economically, and religiously predisposed to change, transformation, and a continuing affirmation of an authenticity in need of constant revival.” “Not only a lack of manners, but a communicative style that is energized by a sentiment of non-cooperation, an exaggerated absorption with one’s own self, or an uncaring attitude towards the welfare of others. In a broader sense,… the degree to which individuals remain respectful of those habituations most valued by their culture.” At the end of the century, 2001, 9/10 Americans, according to a U.S. News and World Report survey, think incivility is a problem, and half call it “extremely serious.” “Ever since the 60s, social niceties have been derided as hypocritical. Yet Americans value peace, cooperation, community, and respect.” – page 272 quoting Briana Cummings

Other countries are not so obsessed with manners (discourtesy, incivility, and social cynicism) 350,000 on a google search in English (America), 3470 in French.

P 275 – the American lawsuit is making people afraid to do things, for fear of being held liable if something goes wrong (doctor driving past an accident so he doesn’t get in trouble if something goes wrong, teachers not enforcing behavior or academic stuff for fear of parents, etc.). Hilton Kramer called this litigious spirit ‘the Second Cold War’ in 1999. Deborah Tannen calls America ‘the argument culture’ in 1998, and that citizens are at the end of their tether, ready for a more peace-making style of discourse.

Lawsuit history – Wikipedia

During the 18th and 19th centuries, it was common for lawyers to speak of bringing an "action" at law and a "suit" in equity. The fusion of common law and equity in the Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875 led to the collapse of that distinction, so it became possible to speak of a "lawsuit".

..and I'll go back to work now.

Yay for presentations on Wednesday...